Change Pdf file metadat

[san2710]

Hi,
i would like to get some help in adding pdf books in Calibre library. I have plenty of PDF books from various sources ( downloaded from internet , serbo cratian language , this is not important, and creators of these books used who knows what to create them. A lot of thanks to them. Mostly i converting them to epub format to read them at my reader Kobo. ) I want to send them to my friend , not very educated in using computer , on USB flash drive with portable Calibre. I wanted also to put them in calibre library.A book will be automatically opened by Adobe reader at his laptop.
Usually when I enter those books in my Calibre library i would edit metadata , and most of time I have to change title an author data ( most of time those data are wrong, author is mostly name of somebody who created the file and there is no title data. I know that in Calibre you can use an option not to pick up title and author from meta data but from a file name. But in this case some useful metadata are lost , if those data exists , as a book cover and some comment and other info about a book.
I am looking for some way that I can change metadata in a pdf book , only author and title, and keep others . When I done this I would add those books on bulk in the calibre library. Now I am using the program BeCyPDFMetaEdit to edit those metadata on one by one book way but I have a cca 3 thousands of those books. I am sure that should be other way to do that in bulk. I am not good in programing bu I could follow some instructions or maybe there are some program that can do that.
Any help appreciated .

[BetterRed]

@san2710 - you should be able to use the Embed Metadata feature, you may want to add it to a toolbar, or you can press Ctrl/E

It can be used on multiple books

BR

[san2710]

BetterRed ,
thanks but i do not know how to use the Embed Metadata feature. When i added it at my toolbar and click it i do not see any change. Where I can change some rules that enable to embed metadata from filename. I need some more detail instructions. I am probably missing something . I also found one old thread ( 3 years ago) in calibre library management thread: Import Author And Title From Filename & Import Other Tags And Cover From File , where you also take part in the discussion. it was the same question, how to use the author and title from filename and the rest of the metadata from the file. In that case was about mobi books.
Is any PDF tool that can fill title and authors tab in metadata from file name ( my file name structure is "< author> - <book name>.pdf " ) ? When metada of PDF books are fixed , than those books could be added to calibre library with no problem. As i already said I did that for individal books.

[BetterRed]

@san2710 - sorry I misunderstood, I thought you wanted to write the metadata from the database into the pdf.

I am still unsure of your question. If the files are named as you described e.g. - Charles Dickens - Bleak House - then in Preferences->Add Books (see attachment) use the pre-defined template - (?P<author>[^_]+) - (?P<title>.+)

I don't think anything has changed since that thread from three years ago. My understanding is that when a book is added the metadata can either be taken from the file name by using a template, or it be extracted from within the book - but not both.

And once the book is in the library I don't think there's a tool to selectively extract metadata from within the format file and update the database.

I find it easier to 'correct' the metadata after I add the book into calibre, rather pre process the metadata in the ebook file before I add it. I create 'books' from a variety of formats including - pdf, txt, odt, docx, epub, mp3, mp4, flv etc - calibre is the only tool I know that lets me maintain the metadata in a consistent manner irrespective of what format(s) I have for a particular book - that's one its major strengths.

For PDF's you might be able to 'fashion' a solution by using Phil Harvey's exiftool to extract the metadata from the pdf's into a csv, and then use the csv as input to the Import List plugin to update the required columns: here's some relevant links

ExifTool by Phil Harvey
PDF metadata: different tool, same story
Import List

BR

[san2710]

thanks for quick reply.
Sorry that you still misunderstood me. I said that was the same topic only than was for mobi files and i was looking for the solution for PDF files. Pdf book files which is possible to download from internet are created from various sources , especially in my language and mostly contain wrong metadata which are not usable. When I apply that ( using existing metadata) on multiple books sometimes I finished with title and author that I do not have idea which book is that.
I was thinking maybe something is changed in last 3 years, maybe some new plugs-in for calibre or some new tools that i do not have knowledge. I used that options that you mention ( I mention that in my first message :'I know that in Calibre you can use an option not to pick up title and author from meta data but from a file name.") I used that, but in that case you finished with books with no covers, no comments.I have to create covers for each book and those covers sometimes give you additional info about the book.
Thanks anyway , I will try those programs

[san2710]

Hi , just to add : the file name is only place from where i can get info about title and author. Sometimes an opening of the book itself does not help. The cover is missing and only the text is there without title page and author.
That's why rename all my books (for that I spend a few days using bulk rename utility , first I had some books already in my calibre library and have to swap title and author) in the structure "< author> - <book name>.pdf " ). The Author exactly one space before - and the title one space after - , to make easier to extract title and author from the file name , with some script or tool. ( I am not good in programing)

[dwig]

@san2710: It sounds like you are trying to "push a rope" with these files.

PDF has its limitations. It is an antique (read: dates from before the Internet) format and was not designed to be an ebook format. It lacks any true support for "covers", at least in the sense we use with ebooks. Trying to massage them so that they automagically import into a new Calibre library with all the data you want will not be easy and some things might not be possible.

Since your intent is to distribute these files as a Calibre Library and you already have the books in your main Calibre Library it would seem to make more sense to:

1. In your Calibre installation, create a new empty library at some convenient location.
2. Switch back to your main library (the creation step switches you to the new library)
3. Select the books you wish to distribute.
4. Click the "Copy to library" button on the tool bar (this may not be present by default; if so, go to Preferences>Toobars>Main Toolbar to add it).
5. Select your new empty library from the menu.
6. Switch to the new library and test it to be sure you've created it correctly.
7. Switch back to your regular library
8. Exit Calibre
9. Using Windows File Explorer (or macOS Finder), copy the new library folder and all of it contents into the Calibre Portable folder tree on the USB flash drive placing it beside the existing "Calibre Library" folder.

You could, if you wish use the "Calibre Library" on the USB flash drive as the target of Step #4, skipping the creation of a new empty library. If you do, just be careful to avoid confusion with your main library as both will likely have the same names. Also, once you've copied the new exported library into the Calibre Portable folder tree, you could delete the "Calibre Library" that is alread there and rename the folder for the new exported library the exactly the same name. Calibre Portable always uses "Calibre Library" as its default library when launched; this can't be changed.

[san2710]

Thanks dwig for your advice. Probably at the end i will follow your proposal. Many of my Pdf books are not yet in my calibre library and the file name in them is mostly author title or author - title. And my first intention was just send pdf books and sorting them by author is maybe better option. Later i start to think of some PDF book manager to make things easier for my friend , and also to watch them by covers (access the covers which most of those books contained) , but the only book manager ( probably the best one) that i can find on my language is calibre and there is also a portable version. That is my reason to send those pdf books as calibre library.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by dwig

PDF has its limitations. It is an antique (read: dates from before the Internet) format and was not designed to be an ebook format.

But the fact is - The Internet, and the World Wide Web both predate the advent of PDF by many and several years respectively. And there are still many titles published as PDF's, because fixed layout is still a challenge for formats designed to be reflowable.

Moderator Notice
@san2710 - if these books you want to give to your friend have copyright protection and you don't have distribution rights then you may be breaking the law in your country, and the rules of this site, I suggest you read Posting Guideline 8

BR

[ab7vf]

Hmmm OK

What I use is :

"PDFTK"

command line: pdftk xxx.pdf dumpdata output metadata.txt

Edit metadata.txt with the text editor of your choice (I use Midnight Commander....simple cheap works)

command line: pdftk xxx.pdf update_info metadata.txt output exampleupdated.pdf

Jim

[dwig]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

But the fact is - The Internet, and the World Wide Web both predate the advent of PDF by many and several years respectively. ...

The Internet, as such, does not predate PDF. The Internet's antecedent, the ArpaNet, did, and by quite a number of decades. It even predates, and is partly the trigger for, the invention of the ebook on July 4, 1971. The WWW is merely an amalgamation of the Internet (nee ArpaNet) and Vannevar Bush's invention of an electrical information reference and retrieval device that dates from the mid-1930s and was described in his magazine essay "As We May Think" from July 1945.